Positive solutions of semilinear second order elliptic equations in exterior domains (Q1071944)

This paper is concerned with positive solutions of the semilinear elliptic equation \[ (1)\quad \Delta u-\phi (x)\quad | u|^{\gamma} sgn u=0 \] in exterior domains, where \(\phi\) is a positive continuous function, \(\gamma\) is a positive constant and \(\Delta =\sum^{n}_{i=1}\partial^ 2/\partial x^ 2_ i\) is the Laplace operator in Euclidean space \(R^ n.\) Our purpose here is to discuss the existence and asymptotic behavior of positive solutions, defined in exterior domains, of equation (1) which has a little been studied in the literature. Employing the techniques of Noussair and Swanson, we reduce the multi-dimensional problem under study to the problem of one dimension and make extensive use of known results on the existence and asymptotic behavior of positive solutions of ordinary differential equations of the form \[ y''-p(t)\quad | y|^{\gamma} sgn y=0,\quad p(t)>0. \]